


just make it sweet to hear

by waitfortheclick



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Films, Gen, Identity, Literature, M/M, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 08:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11710920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitfortheclick/pseuds/waitfortheclick
Summary: I’m Nobody! Who are you?Are you – Nobody – too?- Emily Dickinson





	just make it sweet to hear

They call him Soldier, and he can hear the capital letter, the sense of responsibility, title.  Identity.  But he knows it is only an indulgence, the way people identify with objects or anthropomorphize their pets.  The way a ship or a car might be a "she".  It doesn't mean anything, just like having a man-shaped body doesn't mean he's a man.  The way a possessive pronoun doesn't mean he isn't actually an "it".  They can be fond of him, a well maintained and especially reliable weapon.  People are creative, can form attachments to anything, stuffed to the brim with sentimentality. It doesn't mean a thing.

He looks at the arm and he wonders.  Is it a temporary fix?  Made with old parts, jury rigged until they can get their hands on more of the high tech whatever that makes up the rest of him.  Or, have they not yet gotten around to covering it with the synthetic tissue that covers his body?  Has there been a delay at the factory?  Maybe there's something important there, a key something that connects to the mainframe, easier to access if left uncovered.  If he were to peel back the skin on the other arm, would he find metal underneath?  Best not to damage the merchandise.

Or, maybe it's this: Scars underscore parts of his body, divide it into sections.  Here, a calf, a thigh, a torso, a shoulder.  Maybe that's why he feels so disconnected, maybe every hunk of flesh is just an approximate match.  A jig saw puzzle whose pieces were cut and forced to fit.  Each mindlessly longing for other bodies, bodies lying still under the ground.  What's the difference between an umbilical cord and a lightning bolt?  Soul, he supposes.  He supposes that would be a liability on the field.  He asks someone, "Whose brain did they give me?" just because he's curious.  All he gets is a baffled stare.

OK, so, how about something else.  These people have some amazing technology.  They're doing some incredible things.  Changing the world, they say.  He's changing the world.  More than he ever did, probably, before.  They taught him a lot but he knew a lot, too.  A lot of really shocking and violent things, like how to use a gun.  Use it to intimidate and terrify and kill.  He can make blood spill.  It doesn't bother him, either, not too bad.  He must have been real bad before, and he knows there must have been a before.  He'll get flashes from time to time, no context, ordinary things but sometimes also: Death, at the end of his hands, knife, gun.  He's grateful to have been given a chance, so grateful, because now he only kills who should be killed.  He's given direction, they say "See this man? He's planning to sell state secrets to the enemy."  "This one, she wants to defect."  They point him and he shoots.

In his previous life, he must have been so bad.  Unloved and loveless.  So bad he hadn't been allowed to go on living.  These people have such amazing technology, and he's very grateful to have been given a chance.

There are stories in his head that don't make sense.  As in, he doesn't know how they got there.  Men made of clay, brought to life to fulfill the wishes of humanity.  Where would he have heard about that?  How would he know, how would such a simple creature know its own self?  But he does know, he knows this is what he is.  What he must be.  He can't recall anything before they open his mouth, slip the paper inside.  When they remove it, he just goes away.  He was created for a purpose, and all he knows is that purpose.  But maybe he knows more.  Maybe there's more in his head than mud.  How else would he have any concept of a before, or an after?  No, no, he's getting mixed up.  He's just hearing what people say around him and pretending it has anything to do with him.  Him, a slab of clay, an earthen husk.

There was a fairy, maybe.  Yeah, there was a fairy and she heard a prayer and turned him real.  No, not real.  No Jiminy Cricket, no still small voice.  It didn't take, he was stuck partway, wood chips in his head and a metal arm.  His Geppetto smiling at him, sad, gentle, disappointed, saying, “It's OK, we'll find a use for you.” Reassuring that he'd have a place in the world, a purpose.  Here's a gun, a knife, don't worry; we've got you by the strings.

"I knew him," he pleads.  Oh God, help me, I knew him.

The target had said, “I'm not gonna fight you.  You're my friend.”  As if the two are mutually exclusive.  As if Steve hadn't hauled off and punched him in the nose when they were six because Bucky'd kissed him.  Years later he had laughed and said, “I thought you were making fun of me, I was pissed.”  That's what he said, right before he finally kissed him back. 

As if once Steve hadn't looked at him, all cold, and called him “good for nothing” because he'd heard about how Bucky had been hollering at the girls walking by during his lunch break. 

How'd he even known about that, anyway?  Steve had always had his ear to the ground; up against the grapevine.  The bastard, the sneaky little gossip.  Probably one of those girls told him, he could just imagine it: “Steve Rogers, you'd better do something about that friend of yours.”  That was the thing about Steve; he never had any girlfriends but he had plenty friends who were girls.  They all liked him, they'd all sit for hours for their portraits and talk and talk.

It pissed him right off because he'd been so proud of himself when he'd done it.  Steve didn't get it, Steve always seemed so certain of himself and his place in the world.  Even if it seemed like he was always up against it.  So how the hell could Steve know?  Where the hell did he get off?  He'd been so proud of himself, eating a sandwich between unloading trucks and finding his place in the world.  He'd felt maybe something approaching normal for once, excited by the implicit approval from the other guys. 

He'd always felt so odd, not even considering the queer stuff; reading too much and thinking too much.  He was excited to have some time away from Steve, to get out of their bubble.  He'd thought maybe he could learn to act and think the way he assumed everyone else did and he wouldn't feel so much like he didn't belong.

That's why he was really hurt, though.  Not because of what Steve said, or even because he wondered if it was correct, but because he'd been trying so hard.  He'd been guessing and trying so hard and he still fucked it up.  He still missed his target.  Good job, Buck, you good for nothing, you freak.  He really just ended up hurting himself.

But he could give it back real good.  It probably hurt Steve, too, hearing about him acting like that.  Well, he was his own man, he could do what he wanted.  He could try and miss the mark, could make his own mistakes.  They weren't joined at the hip.  He had a life beyond Steve.  He had said as much, but meaner, just something to hurt him right back.  He thinks that's one thing they were real good at, hurting each other.  That's something people always leave out of love stories, fairy tales, that you never really hurt anyone as much as the ones you love.  You never fight anyone as much as the ones you love.

These memories that busted out of their cages, they've got teeth.  All this truth has claws. 

The shoulder hurt, of course.  The whole body hurts.  The flashbacks hurt, and he's pretty sure he's had at least one seizure.  It all pales in comparison to the knowledge, the thing he's known all along.  He recoils from it in shame but he can't get away from the fact that he's been an idiot, a child.  Pretending and playing and making up stories to cover what he'd lost, what has been taken from him.

He stands in a great big building in a great big city.  He stands in front of a picture of a man with his face, and he thinks, "How awful."  He thinks: How awful it is to be anybody at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to my beta reader, Rhiannon! Bless your patience and keen eye. Inspired by Helen Oyeyemi's interpretation of Fitcher's Bird in her novel Mr. Fox, and the idea of losing oneself in order to survive an unbearable circumstance.


End file.
